Free A Heaven of Others by Joshua Cohen Page B

Jerusalem Reservoir then through a unified pipe up through the length of a solitary faucet but in the tub and on me and around me and over me splashing in the tub having my bath with my splish toys the boats and the buoys and the frogs those many rubberized squeezies that I leaped enormously as if they were ADD/ADHD lambs mated with the most unmedicated of rams from the wilting lilies of the gunky green faucets to crash the cruising ships and tankers to bob the buoys transmitting their blip bleeping signals of distress gurgling as the soap became drowned in the whirlpool lost between my thighs just as my Aba wanted To wash my punim Aba always said then to wash my hair and rinse the stinging yellowgreen snot from out of my nostrils and hair which he said resembled a certain bush Moses once talked to in the wilderness of Sinai the wide purple towel the Royally purple one the Queen’s extra I always got to use when she didn’t need it when its Purpler twin wasn’t in the wash and smelling of her and even feeling of her skin that softness it was Aba’s as he pinched at me still dripping running from his pinches and dripping still soapy water to darken the hallway’s Oriental rug actually Persian Sultanabad and dizzyingly ornamented with various flora that as dead didn’t require my watering as Aba chased and cornered me against the wall of the hall under the photographs of relatives dead themselves but interred as image in wood under glass then picked me up upside down to walk more like stagger with me hanging my wet head down between his legs to my room banging my head then one of his bad knees usually always his weakest one that he hurt once in East Jerusalem and once again in Eilat on the door to my room and saying a word I know but I’m not allowed to repeat as he my Aba began with the story he always told me about the Rabbi of Polyn or with the stories he always now told me about the Rabbi of Polyn or else the one he always told me too about an eagle or sometimes a hawk or a raptor or maybe even a raven at other times that flew down when Aba was out on incursion excursion or exercises up in Lebanon that flew down and stole off his helmet which got him into serious trouble Another story he said it flew with it off and away because Birds Aba once said are the first to disrespect national sovereignty because birds are always the first to disregard territorial borders flew with Aba’s helmet straight to Jerusalem and there to Tchernichovsky Street our building and its third floor to the Queen’s kitchen window which was always open because as Aba would always say We should always keep everything open Aba always said Our windows our doors our minds and our hearts and the Queen who took it of course Aba said as a sign that Aba was dead either killed by the enemy or else in quote friendly unquote fire how he was hostaged or missing in action until Aba came home a week later because Aba he always came home and found Aba said that the Queen had not only just found out she was Pregnant with me he said but had also just used his helmet as a bowl in which to mix up the batter of a cake in some versions an apple cake in others a plum or plain bundt of any cake she was making for the old women woman Or maybe it was a man Aba said Aba didn’t remember and often told it either way who then lived downstairs in what was later the Maier’s apartment but who now was dead and is still who Died a day before or else After your bris Aba would alternately say after the first mohel he didn’t show up with the guests waiting around like pent livestock then the second mohel the first mohel’s son didn’t show up either by the time they’d already gorged themselves on the rugelach all ten trays of the stuff I’d had to order in from Marzipan down on Agrippas Street Only the best meaning only the most costly for the Queen as she wasn’t just then in any shape to slave in the kitchen for all these guests drunk with the schnapps and Wodka