filth teaches filth.
Adonai is strumming his lyre when I sidle up to him.
For the brief moment before he sees me, I find myself staring at the strings as they seemingly pluck themselves. I see them tremble like doves in the air. Their song is faint and sad, but it comes at me with the force of a meteor, and all at once I am dragged back through the waters of time into my childhood, a year old again; half-asleep as my brother plays me songs on the veranda, drowning in sunlight. I have never been sad. I love him, and my heart is pure.
(But I know things have changed, because I realize: he would never have played me this song. It would have been something wind-chime-bright, way back when we had things to be happy about. I was happy once.)
I was happy, once. Maybe I could be again. When I look at Adonai—this boy I love, my brother, my blood—is when I am the most convinced of this.
Today he almost looks like our father. I often forget how handsome he is: partially because I have grown up around him and it is not a surprise; partially because, in recent years, I’ve avoided looking at him at all. I’m afraid of seeing him—at least, really seeing him. I’m afraid of seeing the way his hips stick out, seeing the slat of each rib in his side. I’m afraid of the bruise-blue circles under his tired eyes. I’m afraid of the dullness of his coat; I’m afraid that underneath Father’s fur stole, he is nothing but bones, that without the pelt clasped around his neck he might simply fall apart and clatter to the floor.
Most of all I am afraid of his eyes. When we were children, we laughed at ourselves for matching in that way—him silver and I gold. They were the eyes I knew the best, and if I had ever managed to draw him properly I know I would have started from his gaze and painted outward.
Now he looks at me and my blood runs cold. His face is the same, sweet and elegant as ever, but the eyes are—they’re—wrong. A wrong blue, a bottom-of-the-river blue. And if I look too long I know I will drown.
My mouth fills with brine and salt. My lungs tighten until I think I might be gasping, but even if I were I couldn’t hear it over the pounding of my heart. The edges of my vision grow opalescent black; I squeeze my eyes closed, just for a second, and see intricate patterns of blood-red blossom through them.
He says my name. Miriam. (My name doesn’t sound like my own anymore, except when he says it.) The noise of it rings in my ears; it crashes to a new height and splits, like cymbals.
He says my name, Miriam, the brother I love most, the one I literally have not lived a moment without, and—I smile. Just like that, I can breathe again.
Drinking already? he asks, and my smile turns into a huff of laughter. “If I started any later, we'd all suffer for it," is my droll response, and it is only droll because I know it is the truth. Drunk Miriam barely belongs here; sober Miriam certainly wouldn't.
And anyway, I don't want to suffer. I've suffered enough. We all have. Drunk Miriam forgets her suffering. She forgets everything—the grave plots in the courtyard, my knotted hair; the fact that my brother's eyes were, many years ago, silver instead of blue. She forgets, and she is happy.
I am happy.
My chest burns. Heat rolls over my skin like a thunderstorm rolls across the sky, crackly and overwhelming. I feel like I am going to explode, like I am going to burst at the seams and my insides will pour out in one long stream of sand, and just as I think it really will happen, Adonai begins to lead us toward the sweet sound of the violin, and the danger subsides. I relax.
I do not know why I ever doubted him. If he is sick, I am sick. And if I am suffering, if I am at all tense, he will know it too. I think this is why he leads us out at just the right moment—the second before I crack and spill and burst into flames, or a pillar of salt.
"How do you feel?" I ask, trailing after him, watching the statues fade away on both sides. And I hope he knows I don't mean his sickness; more than that, I want to know if he is bitter, or hopeful, or resigned to his fate.
Because no matter what he answers, I will make myself feel the same way.
