Goldfish | Where Have the Children Gone

Goldfish

She floated on her belly. Five or six boys circling her like a school of fish lunging for a breadcrumb. Class trip. The end of elementary school. Life wide, blue, and deep. Over their heads the only ceiling clear sky and the summer sticking sun knives in their flesh. For most of them, this will be the last time they see each other. Tomorrow the summer vacation will begin, after that they’ll be scattered among the different high schools in town. One day this class will be a distant, hazy memory. With faces blurred, the names mixed up, deeds confused with dreams and dreams with deeds. Things will have sunk to the bottom of the soul.  She’s a freckled girl, not especially pretty. But they are seeking neither beauty nor truth. Not now. They are yearning for the pleasures of the skin, hungry for the nakedness of flesh. Her face is submerged in water. Every now and then she lifts her head to breathe. The breaths are sharp and fine as a needle. The beach is within shouting distance. They are holding her arms and legs and she’s floating on her belly. They could reach their hands under the water and touch her. Feel her breast, her stomach, her thigh. They are laughing loudly. One doesn’t know what the other is doing. Everything is hidden in the water. She wouldn’t know who touched her and who demurred. Does she want them to touch her? They are painfully young. For the shy among them, it’s a golden opportunity. Paupers who chanced upon golden fish. A catch the sea has given them. It’s probably the first time they get to touch a girl’s body, the budding breasts, the tenderness of her flesh. They feel the excitement of the blood in their veins and they laugh. The land is far off. Far are the teachers. The parents are even farther. The sun is boiling on their skin. She is floating quietly, as if it had nothing to do with her. They goad each other to touch her. Is one of them doing it? The water is dark and murky. Nothing is keeping them from touching. She is floating quietly. Maybe she’ll think it’s love. Is she smiling or crying? The water is misleading. The wind is deceptive. The waves are knocking and caressing. One of the boys is suddenly dizzy and he pulls back from the group. Is it me?

Where Have the Children Gone

Now everyone wants to know where the children went. They say

they were kidnapped from the hospital. Others

claim that it never happened. That this is just the talk

of those who’ve lost their minds. That it was a chaotic time,

that things weren’t documented then. That people couldn’t find

their own arms and legs (much less their sons or daughters).

But my grandmother told me she’d had a baby who got sick.

That every day she would travel to see her until one day

they told her only that she was gone, that is, in the night

she’d expired. And now everyone wants to know where

the children went. Some say it never happened. That the children

never were. That is to say, they were and then they weren’t. And

I know the dead won’t rise, and the disappeared won’t come back,

and I don’t want to add anything to my grandmother’s words,

but even if all the seas were ink, and all the trees were pens,

I couldn’t write her scroll of sorrow to the end.

“בהז גד” and “לאן נעלמו הילדים”  from הילדים אל איגרות. Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 2018.

Image by Thomas Colligan.