Authors: Uvi Poznansky

Tags: #Fiction & Literature

Twisted (3 page)

BOOK: Twisted

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This is the largest building in our village, the library where I met the three elders just the other night—or was it once upon a time, ages ago? With each step I take, echoes play out in this space, bouncing off one wall, then another. Emptiness.

Sigh. Echoes of my sigh.

So here I am, in the very place where my end began.

The ceiling seems low, much lower than I recall. It has caved in a bit—perhaps because of the rainy season—and the walls seems flimsier. The shelves have started to decay, but are still laden with scrolls, most of which have crumpled to dust. Dust caught by a faint ray of light, dust traveling the air, dust settling down: on the floor, on the table, everywhere.

Twiddling his fingers after he has finished checking the thickness of the dust layer, Satan cannot help curling his lips in disgust. He seems to be obsessed with order.

“God,” he says, “what an ugly mess!” And in spite of himself the wings come out, like swords out of their sheaths. Then they unfurl feather after feather, wave after frothy wave, till they are stuck there, nearly glued to the low ceiling.

Now his face is reddening.

“Don’t you get excited again,” I advise him. “You know it’s not good for you.”

No longer do I feel distraught. Instead—perhaps out of the force of habit, and the years of service as a housewife—I feel obligated to tidy up the place for him.

But as luck would have it, there are no cleaning supplies. So I tear the hem of my shroud and use it for a rag, and dust the chair so Satan may take his seat; which he does. His breath is regular again; and with a flap, the wings disappear.

I dust the long table, too; which is when the names
Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite
are suddenly unearthed. Like naughty schoolchildren, the three elders must have carved their names into the wooden surface, probably out of boredom. No wonder; prayer is no fun!

And then, then my eye falls upon something else, which is laid upon the table.

It is the only object here with no dust whatsoever. To my amazement, its leather cover seems utterly new, which makes my nostrils—what remains of them—flare: it smells fresh.

Has the book come into being just this moment? Conjured right here, under my nose, just for me? Shaken out of his wings, born out of thin air? How could I have missed it until now? Has it given no sound? No flip, no flap?

Am I dreaming? I stare at it in great awe.

“Ah!” says Satan, noting my expression with great interest. “You are a curious creature, woman.”

“No disrespect intended, sir,” I say, “but don’t play with me. If you know my name—which I am sure you do—you would do well to use it when you talk to me.”

“Oh, I would,” he teases me, “if you were to offer me at least a token of gratitude, if you know what I mean.”

I do. And it’s not that I am not tempted... Satan is a handsome fellow, even with fine-haired goat beard on his chin, which is something I could persuade him to shave off, in time...

“Here we are,” he presses on. “All alone, apparently, in a deserted library... Now, how badly do you want your name back, woman?”

In place of an answer, I gulp.

And he says, “I am given to caprice, you know. So I may, perhaps, be persuaded to give your name back to you...”

His words go roundabout, but his gaze is quite direct. Which leaves me dumbfounded; but only for a second. After all, even as a corpse I cannot risk a scandal—and in my own village, or the copy of it, of all places! The place seems vacant at the moment—but then, who knows?

They say, walls have ears... And gossip, my God, it would be devastating. For sure, it would kill my husband. His heart has been so weak lately. Betrayal—even a whisper of it—would crush him. It would add to the weight of his mounting woes. I still care for Job, even if I am here, trapped in this hellish replica of my birthplace, and he—somewhere up there, in the real thing.

In the silence that has fallen upon the room Satan leafs casually through the pages of the book. Then he raises the magnifying glass to his eye, and glares at me.

“I see,” he says. “Didn’t think so. Just testing; forget it.”

“I will.”

“You are not all that sexy, anyway.”

“And you, sir, are not such a hotshot.”

He raises his black eyebrows. “A dangerous thing to say to the Prince of Darkness,” he says. “How did your husband take such insults?”

“Not well,” I have to admit.

He licks his lips. “A devilish woman you are.”

I nod as if to say, Perhaps I am.

Then, leaning in even closer to study the impact of his words upon me, his eyes come ablaze—or perhaps it is the sudden flash in the glass.

“Your demons,” he says, “are inside.”

Which this time, makes my voice falter. “Perhaps... Yes, perhaps they are. And you’ve said that before.”

“I mean, they are here,” he taps the cover of the book. “In these pages. Behold: this, you see, is the Book of Job.”

I swallow hard. For a moment I cannot say a word.

Then, “Find it,” I beg. “Find my words, if... If... I mean, if it’s there—find what is left of my life, my so-called existence—”

“With pleasure,” he says.

And without delay, he opens to the first page, and starts reading.

❋

T
hen, “
In the land of Uz,”
he recites, looking straight through me,
“there lived a man whose name was Job. This man was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil—
”

“Yeah, yeah,” I say under my breath.

He raises a hairy eyebrow.

“The usual praise,” I mutter, “whether Job deserved it or not... He has always been righteous in his own eyes—even when he sinned. Trust me, I am the one to know.”

Satan ignores my grumbling and on he reads, “
He had seven sons and three daughters, and he owned seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen and five hundred donkeys, and had a large number of servants—
”

“And me?” I cannot help but cutting in. “What about me? Any mention of how he first laid eyes on me, how the fuck he got me pregnant, how on our honeymoon he took me to that hotel in Jerusalem—”

“Settle down, woman,” says Satan. “This is not some cheap romance novel. And no, nothing about you; not a word so far.”

“I see,” say I. “Cattle is more important.”

He gets up, and pop! One of his horns drives a hole in the ceiling.

“Don’t interrupt me again, woman,” he warns me. “I don’t want to lose my temper. But you’re quite right. The story is not too compelling, so far.”

He turns a page or two and his face lights up. “Ah! Here starts the fun! Listen to this:
One day the angels came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them. The Lord said to Satan, Where have you come from? Satan answered the Lord, From roaming throughout the earth, going back and forth on it
.”

“Your favorite phrase, I’m suppose.”

He raises an eyebrow, then raises his voice over me. “
Then
,” he reads, “
the Lord said to Satan, Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil
—”

And I say, “Like hell he is.”

And he reads,
“Does Job fear God for nothing? Satan replied. Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. But now stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face.”

And in a voice that is suddenly choked I say, “Lord in heaven... I know, now I know what happened. I know what you did to me.”

And he counters, “Do you?”

“Yes,” I say. And now, now the tears well up, “It’s all because of you. What a calamity... The loss of my husband’s property, his health..”

“Indeed,” he says.

And with pride in his workmanship he goes on to prove me right. He quotes, with a clear tone of bragging, “
So went Satan forth from the presence of the Lord, and smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown.
”

Satan takes a pause, perhaps to study how I react, how I hang my head in shame.

“At first,” I confess, “I couldn’t feel much pity for Job. I suppose this is why I am punished here, in this realm, with boils on the soles of my feet.”

“Perhaps so,” says Satan. He seems quite amused.

I try to ignore the physical pain. I even bless it in my heart, because without heels, how can you hope to leave traces? My soul will drift away without these wounded soles, that serve to ground it.

Yes, they remind me that this is real. No, I cannot be dreaming. This place is more than a shadow of the other. In a strange way I am more alive now than ever.

Which brings out the other pain, the one I thought I had buried. It is smoldering now, burning me from the inside out.

“
And then,” I say, my voice barely heard, “then came the deaths. Our children... My seven sons, my three daughters... I won’t...I can’t tell you how devastated
—
”

I swallow my tears and struggle, somehow, to finish the sentence, “How broken I was, how consumed with grief... But to you
—
I can see it now
—
all this destruction, all this hurt is nothing, nothing but a bet
—
a move in a game.”

And he corrects, “More like, a test case.”

And awash with tears I stammer, I charge, “Is that what we are, sir, what our lives mean to you? Just some trick, a calculated battle maneuver, which you wish to analyze in hindsight, perhaps in preparation for a larger war?”

And he says, “Just so. How did you guess?”

“Men,” I say, rolling my eyeballs.

And he recites, this time from memory, “
Better to reign in Hell than to serve in Heaven.”
¹

And I wonder, “Is it?”

He puts down the magnifying glass and glowers at me. “Woman, I am surprised at you! Don’t you see it yet? No? You disappoint me, really! In a way
—
without even knowing it
—
you were helping me, advancing my cause.”

“Was I?”

He turns a page, which has been earmarked, and from the top he quotes, “
Then said his wife unto him, Dost thou still retain thine integrity? Curse God, and die
.
”

“Yes,” I say under my breath. “This I said.”

“A clever woman you are! Job should have listened to you.”

I shake my head, No. No.

“Had he cursed God, I would have won this bet, this
maneuver, as you call it,” he says. “Ah, sweet victory! How close it came to be! Too bad he denied you, denied me...”

“What did I do?” I ask, as if I were innocent.

“Woman, you must have known,” says Satan, pointing at me, at the cavity around my heart, “you were my accomplice!”

“No,” I refuse to agree with him. “I was feeling sorry for Job. My only sin, sir, is impatience. Anything
—
even death
—
is better than this hurt, this unrelenting torture. I wanted it to stop. Let it stop, stop already!”

“Don’t lie to me now,” he says. “The truth is simpler. You wanted to be free.”

I turn my back on him and at once he rises from his seat. I hear the chair toppling over, and his step closing in, now directly behind me.

“You urged him to sin,” says Satan. “And so, you have had enough. You wanted him to die.”

“No, no, no!” I say.

“Oh well,” he says. “You know I’m right. In this realm I can see to the hearts and guts of all inhabitants.”

My hands on my ears I am trying hard not to hear him.

“Now listen, woman. If you admit your true intentions to me,” he says, “I can reward you. I can give you what you want, and more.”

Seeing the curiosity in my eyes, he goes on to offer, “First, your dream come true: I can let you have your name back. Then, imagine this: by my side, you can command power; lots of it. You can be my ally
—o
r else, remain a poor, negligible soul. An empty shell, left to rot here, among the rest of them. Dust to dust.”

I keep shuffling over the boils from one foot to another.

So slap! He closes the book, saying, “I shall give you little time to decide. So think, woman, think hard: who do you want to be? A dreamer
—
or one who acts, who takes the bull by its horns?”

“Don’t know... I will be what I will be.”
²

“No human can become what he wills. Look at me: here I stand. Will you serve me? Will you bend to my will, and take command
—
right here by my side
—o
f a new reality?”

“By your side?” I echo.

“Yes,” he affirms. “By my side. Be mine, woman.”

“Then,” I reason, “in death as in life, it’s a man’s world. And so, my newfound position would come not from me, not from within. Nothing would change, really.”

“Power,” he emphasizes, as if this word alone were enough to tempt me.

It nearly is.

BOOK: Twisted

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