Face in the Water
A Short Story
by
Charles Sheehan-Miles
The Egyptian was dead.
That was all we knew at first. He'd been very quiet and subdued, not much for conversation. Not too many Egyptians in Israel after all. Now there was one less.
The blurring of jurisdictions between the civilian and military police was particularly pronounced in the Old City of Jerusalem, that hodge-podge collection of clashing Western and Oriental culture. We saw it in its fullest confusion when they came to investigate. Tensions were high, particularly among the several Palestinians who lived in the hostel. They were in much more danger than the various travelers from Europe and the Americas.
That was to be expected.
The Brazilian artist, Ambrosia, asked me what was happening. He didn't understand: two weeks before, drunk, he had fallen down the steps and hit his head. Now he couldn't remember his own name. The soldiers stopped trying to question him when he responded "Paris" to their query about where he was.
There's a general misunderstanding about just what sort of place Jerusalem is that needs to be cleared up before I go on. The Christians who come here wearily follow the tourist trap laden trail of the Via Dolorosa, following the steps of their own, personal messiah. Jews come from all over the world to pray at the Western Wall in the hope that their messiah will suddenly appear and storm the Temple Mount. The Moslems guard against such notions carefully, peering out of the green-framed Gate of the Chain, watching for the day the Jews will invade their holy shrine. There's no less than sixteen different sects of Christianity here, all of them fighting over their individual reserved spots on the Way of the Cross.
In the streets all of these people mingle, the Arabs still unused to being on the Israeli side of the border. They watch suspiciously as the soldiers make their rounds, and not a day goes by when a soldier isn't hit by a flying bottle or stone from the rooftops. The stone throwers are children, carrying out their own personal rebellion against the Occupation. For, though East Jerusalem and the Old City have been unilaterally annexed by the State of Israel, they remain definitively a part of the Arab world.
Like the tourists I see coming wide eyed in groups every day I believed that Israel, and Jerusalem in particular, was a beautiful, spiritual place—a place with the answers to the myriad questions I had for the world.
I rapidly discovered that Jerusalem is hardly what I would call spiritual, and all I have found here is more questions.
The Egyptian came three months ago. Short, swarthy, he didn't talk much. He came here for work—the sewers of Cairo did not yield much money even to the most industrious worker, and due to the American imposed "peace" since 1979 some few Egyptians quietly made their way to Eilat, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem in search of work.
I didn't know his name, nor did any of the other semi-permanent residents of the hostel. He awoke early and left, returned late, avoided the rest of us.
We had a sort of community—Ambrosia, the alcoholic artist, Daniel, the Canadian mystic who came here after six years in Southeast Asia, Karin, the Dutch girl who had just finished high school. We watched as the tourists and kibbutz volunteers came and went, a few days at a time.
It wasn't so much the fact of the Egyptian's death as it was the manner of his death—he had been garroted in the night with barbed wire. I discovered his body the next afternoon while cleaning the rooms. In the intense heat of the Jerusalem daytime the body had taken on a smell that assaulted the senses when I opened the door.
At first I didn't know how to react. After my middle America upbringing I had never really been prepared for violent death. I would have expected hysteria, perhaps nausea. Instead, I simply stood there, surveying the body from head to toe, then calmly descended to the bar downstairs so I could call the police.
Ambrosia was downstairs in the tearoom, stealing a bottle of arak. I didn't really care—though I did work in the hostel, I had grown apathetic to people stealing from my boss Ramadan. He had cheated so many witless tourists and pilgrims that I figured he deserved it. Besides, Ramadan would shortly have much more to worry about than a missing bottle of arak. There was a dead Egyptian in one of the rooms upstairs.
Let me explain myself a bit. I'm an American, born and bred in the Deep South. I showed up in Jerusalem about nine months ago trying to find some meaning in my life. I shortly discovered that the Holy City was nothing but a headache. For some reason I have hung on here—perhaps it's preferable to being in Nashville, that blot on the map somewhere between New York and Miami. At least here I am no longer part of the faceless white middle class—rather, I have become somewhat of a minority. I rather like it that way. Unfortunately, shortly after I arrived, I ran out of money and found myself in the streets begging. To say the least, Israelis do not like to part with money. However, it was preferable to working.
After a while though, people started to recognize me. Knowing what I was up to they would cross to the other side of the street rather than part with a shekel or two. I started getting hungry, so I promptly found the worst job I've ever had in my life, running a hostel in the Old City. I didn't make much money, but I had a room to myself, a prized commodity for someone who has slept in the street.
After the Egyptian was killed it looked like my comfort was about to end, however. The police were going to shut down the hostel—permanently. Rumor had it that Ramadan was an informant for the Israelis, so it must have been quite a shock for him to suddenly be treated like the rest of the Palestinians.
After the soldier had questioned each of us they told us to pack our things and find another place to stay: el‑Zeit hostel was closed. A sinking feeling in my stomach, I approached Ramadan and asked for my money. I received the expected answer—"No. This is your fault."
Not at all surprised I went upstairs, packed his shiny new compact disk player into my bags, and left. Due to the fact that, like hundreds of others in Jerusalem, I was working illegally, I couldn't exactly report him to the labor office to get my money. I could take more direct means, however. The CD player sold for about three hundred shekels, roughly what Ramadan owed me.
After selling it in the bazaar, I went to one of the other hostels in the Old City. I had stayed in this one briefly, some months before. It was cheap, and it had the bonus of Simon.
How to explain Simon? Difficult, some would say. More vocal opinions about him ranged from "that stuck up English boy" to "I'm going to kill him before long." It is best not to attempt to explain him. He was my only real friend in Jerusalem. If you questioned him for some hours, you would find that he carried a British passport. I, however, had the sneaking suspicion that he was from South Africa. There are worse places to grow up than Nashville, Tennessee.
"Ah, Charles," he said as I walked in. In theory he was employed at this hostel. He didn't get paid, however, nor did he really do any work. He was a poet of sorts, and as I made myself a cup of tea he launched into a recitation of his newest work. I will not attempt to repeat it here—Simon was a master at making a single sentence say what I spend fifty pages on. He was incredibly eloquent and in a years time he would be dead on Jaffa Street, run over by an over eager bus driver.
I nodded after he finished and told him I would have to hear it again later, as my attention span had been reduced to about five seconds.
"What is it?" he asked.
"The Egyptian is dead."
He nodded, pondering my answer. "What does that have to do with it?"
"They've shut down the hostel. Permanently."
"I see your difficulty. Did you get paid?"
"Of course not. However, I nicked his CD player as compensation and s
old it on the way over here."
"I presume you got a decent price."
"Decent."
"Good," he said. "Now you can buy me dinner."
I nodded. "Of course."
It was some hours later, long after sunset, that we set across the Old City to the "Green Door," a dubious establishment that served really cheap pizza. Not pizza as we know it in the states, but a more—well—Middle Eastern version.
Understand—the Old City is not like a modern western city. When the sun sets, everybody goes home and those already dark alleys become pitch. Jerusalem at night has a wonderful, serene quality to it, but just the same you can't help feeling a little nervous walking through the Moslem Quarter. Of course, this was where we were going.
"You got any cigarettes?" I asked.
"Yes. I have an abundant amount, Charles."
We walked a little ways further in silence as I mused over his manner of speech, then I looked over at him. "Would you like to give me one?"
"Certainly, Charles." I took the cigarette from him, pulled out my lighter and lit it. The flash blinded me momentarily.
***
I am more afraid now than ever as the black waters surge around me. I am closer to the end—fifty meters, now twenty-five.
Below me is a pitch gap in the pier, three meters across, the water washing into it. I have to crawl around it, clinging to the rocks. Terror jumps into my heart as I see a massive wave rushing against the pier, and I hug myself to the rocks. The water hits me with crushing force, washing over my head. I am nearly pulled from the rocks as my entire body is submerged,
I gasp for air as the wave washes away. I am halfway around the gap. In a moment of clarity as the water washes away I see a shattered bottle of beer lying in the gap below me.
I have passed the gap and now I am only five meters from the end of the pier. The land is far behind me; I can no longer see it except a few lights to the south.
Crawling on my hands and knees, I finally reach the end of the pier. Twice the waves completely submerge me. My heart is screaming in terror now, screaming to turn back.
I grip the rocks at the end of the pier, staring into the water as if to shout a challenge, "Why have you brought me here?" What is that in the water? I can see a face, it seems, as I try to discern the pale luminescence that transcends the blackness surrounding me. I can almost see it. The Egyptian? Ramadan?
With rising horror I realize that the face is my own.
***
My screams awoke the rest of the hostel. Someone shook me awake, I don't know who. My body was drenched in sweat, and I heard groans in the dormitory around me. Salman, the manager of the hostel, stood in his bathrobe at the door, staring down at me. He was shaking his head.
"Have you gone crazy, my friend?" he asked, staring into my wide eyes. "You wish to scare away all my customers?"
I shook my head, breathing heavily. Still shaking, I sat up. I had been sleeping in my clothes.
Stumbling past Salman I went into the kitchen. Simon was in there, a cigarette in his hand. His bare feet were lounging on the table. His eyes bored into me as I prepared a cup of coffee. I finally sat, lit a cigarette with my shaking hands, and stared back at him.
"The pier again?" was all he asked.
I looked him in the eyes, nodded.
We were silent for a few minutes. I poured the coffee when the water was hot. Sitting across from him, I stared at my hands. I could see the dirt that had been caught under my fingernails. I heard someone stumble in the darkness outside the kitchen to the W.C. A curse was muttered somewhere.
"How long has it been since you had the dream?"
I did not answer at first. Looking at the wall over his shoulder I took a drag off my cigarette, sighed, then said, "Five months."
"I'm going to say the same thing now that I said five months ago. You must go back and fight it. Otherwise, the dream will plague you for the rest of your life."
I sighed again, looking away.
"I know," I said. "I know."
***
Understand—in the dream I made it to the end of the pier. Sometimes I would see different faces—my mother, her ashes scattered before the replica of the Parthenon in Centennial Park these past ten years—sometimes my best friend, killed by an overdose of narcotics.
I had seen Todd the night before he died. He had asked for help, but I had been so disgusted with his drugged stupor that I turned my back on him. Four days later I attended his funeral.
Always, whatever the face in the water appeared to be at first, it would turn into my own. It began the night I arrived in Israel. I had finished my sophomore year at Georgia Tech, but after the death of my best friend I could no longer bring myself to return after the summer. On September, ten months ago, I arrived in Tel Aviv.
Something—something inside of me wanted me out on that pier. Sitting on the beach that night, it had stared down upon me like some Orwellian stone Big Brother, calling to me.
Unlike the dream, I never made it to the end. The fear defeated me, and I turned my back and walked away. The nightmares began the next evening.
Somehow Simon convinced me, ten months later, to go back. I could not have done it on my own—the very thought raised an unholy terror in my heart.
The next afternoon I was in a sherut taxi, on my way out of Jerusalem. Throughout the forty-minute drive from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv I stared out the window, trying not to let the others in the cab see my fear. As we slowly descended from he Judean wilderness into the coastal plain, into the ugly gray city of Tel Aviv, I felt a sense of homecoming. I could feel the pier whispering to me.
That night I sat in the Back Pack Hostel of Tel Aviv, staring out the window, not speaking to the other travelers who crowded around me. Then, when the appointed hour came, I felt all the energy drain out of my body. My limbs felt like rubber as I slowly stood, blood rushing to my head, my stomach turning. I walked out of the hostel, across Dizengoff Street, and toward the ocean.
The beach was just as I had remembered it, black, barren. The tower where the lifeguards sat all day was empty, no one outside on this dark, sad night.
I could see the pier. The waves crashed against it violently, and it stood unmoving. I climbed onto it and walked out toward the water.
Like Christ going to the crucifixion I walked forward wounded, tears flowing down my face. Unlike the pilgrims who bought drinks and souvenirs as they followed his footsteps in Jerusalem, I walked forward empty handed, fortified only by my fear.
It did not take long to reach the end of the pier. The waves crashing about me, soaking me, I crawled most of the way, desperately gripping the stone as my only hold to the life I had known. This was not a physical test, I knew. I made it to the end of the pier that night. Staring out at the black chaos of the ocean I stood, raised my fist to the sky, and I silently screamed, "Why have you brought me here!"
At that moment a wave crashed over me and I was pulled away from the pier, tossed like a toy into the water. The chill sank into my bones, but I barely noticed it as I was thrown about by the waves. As I struggled to the surface to breathe a massive wave lifted me up, carried me, and smashed me back into the pier. The pain of a rib breaking crashed its way into my consciousness, and at that moment I knew why I was here, why I was afraid. As if it were my own crucifixion, I had killed my old self, that uncaring, cold self that had emerged from the deaths of those I had loved. Laying there, my arms wrapped around the stone, I wept. I wept for the death of an old friend—and for myself.
Copyright 2012 Charles Sheehan-Miles.
Any resemblance to real people, living or dead, is unintentional, with the exception of certain named historical characters.
Cincinnatus Press
Atlanta, Georgia