The Others, Sarah Blau [hardest books to read txt] 📗

Poof! Micha’s gone.

Only after the door shuts behind him, I remember that the father in the movie, the one who taught his daughter how to twist the knife, wasn’t even her real father – it was the impostor.

That’s life. You never get the useful information from the people closest to you.

With Gali’s face inches from mine, I can see the blonde peach fuzz on her upper lip. Does she bleach it, or is it naturally fair like it usually is with redheads? I take a step back.

“But I’m going to need a close-up of you later,” she says, while fiddling with the tripod. She’s going on and on about her poor camera and everything that’s wrong with it and how long it took her to find a decent repair shop and how the technician reminded her of a neighbour they once had. She’s rambling so badly that I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that there was nothing wrong with the camera, not even for a moment.

“You seem kind of down,” she offers gently, and I, sick of all the pretending, decide to tell her why.

“Can you show me the picture?” The eagerness in her voice – snuffing out any trace of its former gentleness – makes me flinch, but it’s too late to back out. “I absolutely love witches,” she adds.

Yes, they all love them when they’re young.

I study her while her eyes devour the picture, and once again I get that niggling feeling that I know this witch, that I’ve seen her before. Remember!

“Micha isn’t helping you find out who sent it?” She utters his name so casually, but it doesn’t bother me any more. I mean, it almost doesn’t.

“No, not really.”

“Well, he’s kind of a douchebag,” she says. “I hope you know that.”

I consider her as she tinkers with the aperture, but there’s something flickering behind that quiet tone, and when she looks up and our eyes meet, pupil to pupil, I realize that I do know that. Micha is a douchebag.

“Can I make coffee?” She hasn’t finished asking and already she’s on her way to the kitchen. I’m surprised to find that I feel rather comfortable with it, that I don’t mind her seeing the stained floor and the sticky mess on the counter, the grimy dishes lying in the sink. Two little dollies, taking it on the chin… two little dollies, comfortable in their own skin.

I hear her opening the high cupboard, and know which mugs she’s going to choose. The pretty special-occasion mugs I never (ever) use. They’re white bone china with a thin gold trim that means you should never put them in the microwave, unless you want them to explode. Let them explode! Let it all explode!

When she hands me a mug, I feel the heat permeating my palms and recall an article I read about how men who were served a cup of hot coffee by a pretty woman would rate her more attractive than the men to whom she served a cold cup.

No surprises there, huh? Warmth, nourishment, love, home, they all speak the same language, all of them, always. Let them explode! Let it all explode!

Above the mug’s gilded rim, Gali’s face looks soft and flushed. The rosy cheeks lend her a childish vulnerability, but something about the slow, measured way she stirs her spoon keeps me from taking a sip. Her small hand swirls the spoon clockwise, then counter-clockwise, while my own hands clutching my mug are still and sweaty, the gilded edge glistening menacingly.

“Where did you come from all of a sudden?” My teeth clink against the china, and I wonder whether they’ll scratch the enamel.

“What do you mean?” While there’s genuine surprise in her voice, I get the feeling she knows perfectly well what I mean.

“You know that in books, when someone suddenly appears after a wave of murders, that person’s usually the murderer.”

I can’t believe those words just came out of my mouth, words I didn’t believe I could think, What’s going on with you? This is your little munchkin!

But this grown-up munchkin in front of me isn’t flinching. “I came precisely because of the murders,” she says. “Once Dina was killed, I realized I had to make this video now, because who knows what’s going to happen.” Her voice trails off. We both know what’s going to happen.

“What do you remember about my mum?” Her voice suddenly sounds childish, but then again, everyone sounds like a child when they say “my mum.” That’s just how it is, you never stop being mummy’s baby.

What can I possibly tell her? I hang my head low, and my eyes land on the painting of the dead witch, and all at once, it hits me.

Frida Gotteskind’s Witches throughout History course! The four of us took that course together first semester, and the lecturer was a fat and chipper Belgian who got divorced two months into the course, and then wasn’t so chipper or chubby any more. In fact, she lost so much weight she went from chubby to scrawny and sunken, and ended up looking, well, not unlike a witch.

She used to show us slides of witches who had been tortured and dragged and burned and drowned, and those drawings looked a lot like this one, with the same elusive, dreamlike quality.

This is it, Sheila, the past has come knocking. It’ll always haunt you, even if you thought you left it all behind. Got that, Witchiepoo?

I eye Gali. If the person who sent me the picture was in Frida Gotteskind’s course, it couldn’t have been her. Think! Remember!

I’m so caught up in my thoughts that Gali has to repeat the question, and unfortunately, I blurt out the first thing that pops into my mind.

“I guess my most vivid memory of Naama is from that last night.”

Stupid, stupid woman! Why do you always have to open your big mouth? Gali baulks and backs into the tripod, and the camera crashes