Pet Snail

Nomi and I had a snail. We placed it in any empty ice-cream packing,
on a bed of lettuce. We took turns spraying it with water drops.
Morning come, Nomi would emerge from our bed, her face disheveled, and
sleepwalk to enquire how the snail was doing. She rejoiced with every
black-rimmed bite, clapping her hands and drawing me to witness the
tiny miracle. She replaced the perforated leaf with a green and dewy
one about once a week.


At first, her minuscule charge concealed itself among the
decaying greenery. Nomi spent hours, patiently awaiting a revelation.
Crowned with a set of dark, huge earphones that I bought her, she
pounded her keyboard, keeping a lovat eye on the snail's
abode.


When it finally emerged one day, the music stopped and she
exclaimed elatedly.


Later that year, I was sentenced to a prison term. On the way
home, courtroom echoes reverberated in the hushed interior of the car.
Nomi said: "Let's go somewhere before ?"And I responded: "Let us go to
Eilat, to our hotel."


"A pity the jazz festival is over" - she frowned. "A pity" -
I agreed.


At home, an air of doom, we packed a hasty suitcase and
booked the flight.


A thing I said reminded Nomi of the snail. She held its lair
in both her hands and placed it accusingly on the glass top table in
the living room.


"What shall we do with it?"


"Let's leave it enough water and food for a whole week." - I
suggested - "His needs are few, he is so teeny, so I don't think
there'll be a problem."


Nomi secured an errant golden curl behind her ear: "You
sure?" I was and so we entombed him beneath some salad leaves and
showered him with water and Nomi giggled: "To him it's rain". Then she
grew serious.


It was an early morning. Nomi felt my swollen eyelids,
pausing her finger on the protruding veins. On the way to the elevator,
she stopped, unloaded a laden rucksack and hurried to the entrance
door, wildly rummaging for the keys in her multicolored purse. She
returned to me, flushing and panting and uttered: "It is fine!". "It
climbed through some lettuce sprouts" - she reported. Her morning voice
was moist and hoarse, Edith Piaf-like. I cast a virile hand over her
shoulder and guided her outside.


We spent four days in Eilat. We slept a lot and swam the
pools, among the waterfalls and artificial rocks. My sister happened to
be staying there with her newly-minted family. But it was already
chilly and autumnal and, four nights later, we decided to return. My
imminent incarceration loomed and Nomi was atypically broody. I tried
to comfort her, thinking what a consummate liar I have
become.


When we reached home, Nomi dumped her suitcase, precariously
balanced on its two hind wheels. I heard the metallic clinking of
unfurled bolts and she was gone. A minute or two later: "I can't find
it!" and then "It is not here, Sam!"


We cautiously separated one gnawed leaf from another. We
studied the inside of the box and its immediate neighborhood, the
marble counter. The snail was nowhere to be found.


Nomi was restless for the remainder of that day. Down hill,
at a crossroad, concealed behind a gas station, stood an intimate
French restaurant. It was our crisis eatery, a refuge of
self-administered great wines and nouvelle cuisine. But today its
charms failed. Nomi was crestfallen throughout dinner. She sat and
gestured and chewed the food mechanically.


Still, ever so practical, faced with numerous arrangements
before my disappearance, she recovered. But she refused to discard the
now orphaned container and she made sure the leaves were always fresh
and glistening. She thought that I didn't notice how she inspected the
box, hoping to find her snail in it, revenant.


"It must be bigger now" - she sighed and then - "Today I plan
to clean the entire house. It is your last weekend
here."


On cue, I went to the public library and spent a good few
hours reading Kafka's "Metamorphosis", a story about a respectable
clerk turned loathsome insect in his sleep.


We used to clean the house together, Nomi and I. She would
sluice the floor and I would dust, scrub the bathrooms and the kitchen.
It was one of the last things we did together before we
stopped.


The afternoon was muggy and I walked home, immersed in
thought. I found Nomi slouched on an armchair, surrounded by heaps of
furniture and bundled carpets. Her face wore tearful makeup, her eyes
were distant, and her hair bedraggled. I upturned a chair and faced
her, silently.


She pointed speechlessly at the general direction of the
kitchen and then subsided.


"I stepped on it, I squashed it" - and added frantically - "I
didn't mean to! It is still so small and I don't know how it made it to
that corner!"


"It must have climbed the refrigerator and descended to the
floor" - I ventured. She signaled me to keep away.


"I had to clean the house because of you, because you are
going" - in an accusatory tone.


I didn't know how to respond, so I tiptoed to the kitchen and
contemplated the mess of snail and concha on the floor.


"Shall I wipe it off?" - I enquired meekly.


"Now, I don't even have a snail" - tears blended with
startling exhalations - "You will be gone, too! I thought we could
fight the world, you and I, that we are invincible. But it is not like
that at all! We can't even look after one snail
together!"


"Are you mad at me?" - I asked and she snorted, part pain and
part contempt. She scooped the shattered snail with a paper towel and
dumped both in the overflowing trash bin. She froze like that awhile
and then, as if reaching a decision, she deposited the box, replete
with lettuce leaves, in the garbage can.


"I don't think I am going to need it. I am never going to
have another snail" - she paused - "At least not with
you."


==============================


Short Fiction in English and Hebrew


http://gorgelink.org/vaknin/


http://samvak.tripod.com/sipurim.html


http://www.suite101.com/files/topics/6514/files/worksinenglish.zip


Poetry of Healing and Abuse


http://samvak.tripod.com/contents.html


Anatomy of a Mental Illness


http://samvak.tripod.com/journal1.html