The Marsh Angel by Hagai Dagan (ebooks online reader .TXT) 📗

Rabbah Bar Bar Hana. He didn’t like that idea. The Peugeot kept coughing and wheezing; the road wasn’t long, but it felt to Tamir like it was going on forever. The decrepit car descended further and further down, vanishing completely inside great clouds of dusts, swallowed up in a forest of thin, stubbed pine trees, entrenched in dirt roads and stained with faded sun-spots, while Tamir became increasingly absorbed in Ophira’s eyes; it was as if they had separated from her enigmatic smile, opening towards him as separate entities, autonomous planets of cool mud and fog, shifting swamps in the night, pitch-black peat stirring in unfolding depths. He was no longer floating expertly. He was sinking, his arms and legs flailing. When they finally reached their destination, he could hardly remember who they were and what they were there to do.

The grave was housed in a decent-looking mausoleum, not too run down, its turquois dome even possessing a certain grace. It rested on the bank of an open valley surrounded on all sides by towering, forest-crowned mountains. Several thick-bearded Jews surrounded the grave, holding siddurs15 and praying vocally, while a group of noisy women clustered by the entrance, some in dresses, sheitels, and headscarves, and others in jeans and tight shirts. Those in headcovers were quick to wrap up their impious sisters in scarfs and fabrics, and the whole hive was bustling with coiling and swathing. Tamir asked Ophira is she wanted one of those scarfs.

Yeah, sure, she laughed.

They peeked inside. The interior was designed with remarkable bad taste. The grave itself was covered in a black shroud embroidered with the words Gravestone of Our Devine Teacher Rabbah Bar Bar Hana, May He Protect Us with His Grace. Palm trees were embroidered on both sides of the epitaph. The shroud was covered in a clear plastic sheet, to which someone had crudely attached a hand-written sign, imploring visitors to maintain the sanctity of the place. In one of the corners was a bookshelf containing Holy Books. Sweaty men edged their way towards the grave, pressing their lips to Psalm books with expert skill.

Female! someone said and pointed at Ophira. An unkempt yeshiva16 student in an over-sized suit pressed towards them. Soldier, he roared at Ophira without looking at her, up to the women’s balcony,17 not here.

Not here, indeed, Tamir mused. Come on, let’s get out of this shithole, he said to Ophira in a voice loud enough for the student to hear. He cast a bewildered look at Tamir. They quickly turned their backs to him, left the mausoleum, and turned onto a path which winded into the forest. They strolled along the path; the further away they got from the mausoleum, the taller Tamir felt, like the serenity of the forest was instilling him with newfound vigor. They walked further and further along the bank of the valley, until the hustle and bustle of the mausoleum behind them faded away entirely.

I’ve been at this base for a whole year now, and I’ve never been out to these forests, Ophira said. It’s like a school field-trip.

Did you like field-trips?

Couldn’t stand them.

Actually, I don’t know anything about you.

What would you like to know?

Oh, I don’t know…

What kind of music I like? What kind of films? What kind of food? she asked sarcastically, suppressing a smile.

What was the last dream you had?

Ah, that’s original, her smile widened. Hmm, let me think… Oh, yes, I dreamed I was standing at the base’s gate, waiting for a ride, when suddenly a limousine pulls up; I get inside and I’m immediately offered champagne; I drink the champagne and it’s a bit bitter, but I keep drinking it anyway, and then the limousine turns into an airplane filled with cameras and we’re flying over Syria taking pictures; suddenly, a rocket is fired at us but it turns into a flower, a rose which gets pinned to my collar like a platoon-commander pin; the rose squirts me with rose-water, I’m licking myself and I’m thinking, wow, I taste so good! Like a malabi. Someone just needs to cover me with pistachios…

Did you really dream all of this?

You think?

It could have been a neat dream. You should turn it into a short story and submit it to a newspaper.

Yeah, sure, she laughed and looked at him. He gazed into her eyes again. They absorbed the diminishing rays of light, and tiny sun-spots emerged over the bustling red loam. They stopped in their tracks. Their feet stood over a bed of moss-covered rocks. Tamir recalled that in field-trips with the youth movement he could never find a comfortable place to rest on the ground, that wherever he sat, tiny pine needles would prick his back, tiny pebbles would jab his bottom, and sticky spurge leaves would get tangled in his clothes. But now, none of that mattered. They cautiously probed their way towards each other, before finally grabbing each other with desperate urgency and plunging onto the mossy stones.

Scorching-hot mud, searing and pleasuring, covered everything. Fluttering orcs emerged from its depth before being swallowed back down. Shapes beyond recognition, distorted worlds seeking form and a name, ancient kings and forgotten kingdoms, red and hairy, granite stones and rubies and raging lava falls, gates opening like the flickering of a blood-red eye, I have seen things you mortals cannot even imagine, spaceships ablaze in Orion’s shoulder, angels falling like shooting stars through seven galaxies, illuminated by the blaze of seven suns, giants of light and fire approaching the colossal, sublime daughters of man emerging from the womb of the abyss enveloped in darkness and gloom, oh, daughters of man, for they are splendid, for they are mellifluous and succulent, and all is blissfully futile, all is but rays of white light piercing through sweet, infinite darkness, darkness to cover the earth as far as the eye can see, and how good it is to die at its bosom, to fill the lungs with sweet, warm mud, and die.

Why are you