‘De-nur means “of the fire” in Aramaic,’ I continued. ‘But Ka-Tzetnik did not rise in Palestine triumphant – he slithered and hid in his suffering.’
Sugarman handed me the dregs of her Gatorade. ‘Have a drink. Please. You look ill,’ she said.
Barbra, the leghold trap in our basement, slithered in while I was gulping.
‘You need to at the very least read Ruth Franklin,’ Sugarman said, still holding her phone like a weapon. ‘Which, as it happens, I’ve been telling you to do for a year. A Thousand Darknesses is a masterwork. It speaks exactly to what you are working on, truth and variation, the burdens of truth, truth and the context behind what we call lies.’
I realized that the doctor had not been listening to me.
‘Because what I want to know, actually, what offends me,’ Sugarman continued, ‘is why you want to act like no one before you has ever thought of this stuff? Because this is how we work here: we rely on reading each other’s texts. We read each other as Jewish thinkers in order to work on our own thoughts and build other, newer things.’
But that was not how I wanted to work. I wanted to make completely new readings of every single Jewish thing. Ka-Tzetnik’s proximity to truth was truth enough for me. Truth was an in-and-out slithering.
‘Does your husband like it when you get all worked up?’ I asked Sugarman, laughing.
‘Okay. That’s it. I’m calling security. This is over. We are done here,’ Sugarman said.
§
Ice coated the telephone wires. My father’s Benz was buried under wedges of snow. I rammed my spine into the wall underneath my window ledge. My father had usually left for the hospital by now.
Ariane appeared in the doorway fully dressed. She walked in and sat on the edge of my bed.
‘What’s wrong?’ she said.
I yanked her by the arm. Barbra behind my eyelids at the edge of a cliff.
‘Stop,’ she said.
But I’d already got her off balance. Now I just had to wrestle her in. I got her under the covers. I started biting her neck.
‘They’re all awake down there. Stop it. Come on, your dad, too.’
Ariane smelled like smoke from last night. I wanted to fight her. I felt like a bat. I had to tell her and my father where I was going. I unbuttoned her pants. Ariane started struggling. How long had I been sleeping? I felt my blood rushing.
‘Stop. Come downstairs with me,’ Ariane said.
But I manoeuvred myself on top of her and pulled her jeans down to her calves.
Barbra didn’t want the shyster anymore. She told me her real name. She wanted me.
I started licking two-tongued down Ariane’s stomach, keeping her plastered down on my bed. I swished into her belly button and she started to squirm. I remembered her tongue last night filling Barbra’s mouth.
‘Come on, stop. Let’s go downstairs.’
Jew-boy, that was an hallucination.
I dragged my tongue swishing through Ariane’s pubic hairs. I gripped her thighs. I knew exactly what she liked. I squeezed Ariane’s ass cheeks from underneath and I split them. She rocked into me. This would be her goodbye. Ariane loved being opened from behind. Why were they kissing? I did not make this up, I still heard the saliva. I forced Ariane all the way up and down the length of my face. Her pussy tasted icy. My nose was all coated. In the upstroke I found suction on Ariane’s clit. Her clit was like a stone underwater. It turned oily when I sucked it. I plunged my first finger up into her from behind. I did two. I found her asshole with my pinky. Ariane gripped my whole head with her thighs and she pumped.
I couldn’t get my words out.
I’m going back to Israel.
Ariane stopped and pulled me up.
‘What?’ I said.
‘Nothing.’