Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 75 of a new online serial novel, Outside the Bubble, by Esther Rapaport. Check back for a new chapter every week. Click here for previous chapters.
Copyright © Israel Bookshop Publications.
It sounded like Mike was very sure of his facts, so there was no point in denying them.
But Martin was not the type to be convinced without a fight. “What are you going on about?” he said scornfully. “I didn’t know that anorexia has a severe effect on other perceptions, besides the perception of the body’s proportions. Who exactly is not my uncle? And on what grounds did you evaluate me and decide what I do or don’t have?”
Mike just smiled knowingly. “Fine, fine.” His voice was also low, making it sound even more threatening. “You know that I know, and that’s it.”
“Tell me, what do you want from me?” Martin was both on the offensive, and trying to appease, at the same time.
“Not much.” He continued to snicker, arousing in Martin a desire to give him a stinging slap across the face. “Just one thing.”
“Just one thing!” He was very careful not to affirm the boy’s suspicions. He stepped around him and after two steps, turned and threw back in a whisper: “You have demands, huh? Well, keep them to yourself.”
“I don’t keep anything to myself.”
Martin fixed him with a withering glare, while processing the information as fast as he could. If this Mike, who until now had cooperated to an extent with Michoel Perl, was resorting to threats, it was probably an extortion attempt. There was a good reason that he had come over to him now and started talking about the familial relation that didn’t exist. He could have gone straight to Dr. Skulholt and told him about the truth he had discovered.
Obviously, he really did want something from Martin.
“So tell me: what do you want?” Too bad he couldn’t scream.
Mike glared back at him steadily as his lips formed the words, soundlessly: “To get out of here with you.”
Martin left the room with large strides, dashed down the stairs, and from there, made a beeline for the grassy lawns, as if trying to escape from the conversation. The slim boy was hot on his heels.
They walked one behind the other along the path; for anyone looking at them, it could have looked like a foolish ego game. Eventually, Martin stopped in a quiet corner, where there were no bushes, and turned around to the other boy, who was huffing and puffing behind him. “Which means?”
“I’ll help in whichever way I can,” Mike said, looking at Martin calmly. “But for that I need us to be on the same side. If you help me, I’ll help you.”
“Why would I want to leave?” Now was exactly the time to play dumb. “I want them to treat me. My uncle also wants to get well. Don’t you? Do you enjoy having anorexia that much?”
“Stop it already.” This time it was Mike who turned on his heel. “Just remember what I said to you. And when you want to, let me know.”
“When I want what?”
“I’m not repeating myself.” Mike turned to the building again, and because he was whispering, Martin wasn’t sure he was hearing him right. “And don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“Your threats are quite amusing.” Martin was determined to have the last word. “And I’ll tell my uncle about you. Ha! You’re a real comedian!”
Mike didn’t answer, and moved off.
Martin walked slowly back to the building, wondering where he was supposed to go now that the ridiculous group session had ended. He didn’t remember his schedule for today. Another meeting in Dr. Jerry’s room? With his lips pressed together, he walked into the corridor and began walking. He wondered what Michoel would say about the youth and the conversation they’d had.
“Ah, Josef!” Dr. Jerry Skulholt almost collided with him as he hurried down the stairs. “You’re just the one I wanted to speak to now.” He stopped, and Martin had no choice but to stop too. He slowly climbed another stair, and then murmured, “What?” Now he was one step above the psychiatrist, but the added height did not give him any advantage, or even a shred of an idea of what to do.
The doctor fixed him with a look and said, “You and Mike got at each other, huh? What happened? Do you know each other from somewhere?”
“No.” Yosef Schorr often wore an inscrutable expression.
“What were you talking about?”
“Nothing much.” He wanted to keep moving. He was allowed to be not particularly pleasant or obedient.
“What was it about?” The doctor also knew how to be not so pleasant when he wanted to.
“He’s the edge type, and he got very angry when I was talking to the counselor and used his hat as an example for something.”
Dr. Skulholt blinked. “The argument was very long,” he said. “For all that time you were only speaking about his hat?”
“Um…no.” Martin scratched the back of his neck. “Not only about the hat. We mostly argued about my uncle.” If his gamble was right, and Mike was not collaborating with the management, he had to get to him and update him about the new version of their argument. He hoped that no one else on the staff had buttonholed Mike on some other staircase in the building and was debriefing him right now.
“And what were you arguing about, in regard to your uncle?”
“He said that he, I mean Mike, is the closest to Michoel, because they’ve been here together for a long time, and now that I came, that wouldn’t change. I told him that he was just a stand-in, because my uncle didn’t have anyone else close to him in this place. The fact is that he wanted very much for me to come here.”
The psychiatrist looked annoyed. “I hope you’ll be smart and not start up with him again,” he said. “We’re a group, and a group is power. Arguments destroy that power. By the way, how was your meeting with everyone?”
“Fine.”
“It’s a session that takes place once a day.”
“But you promised there would be interesting things.”
“And? It wasn’t interesting?”
“No. Just lots of talking from someone who had a dream and told everyone about it for twenty minutes,” he huffed. “You think that’s what will help me? I had all kinds of support groups and stuff like that in Israel, and it’s all a bunch of nonsense.”
“Wait,” the psychiatrist said. “You just got here, and you want to do everything already? Things take time.”
“How much time?”
“Time.” He smiled again. When Ernie had put an eye on that millionaire businessman on the bus, he had thought only about the money. But the nephew himself was turning out to be a real asset to their group: he was clever, even brilliant, and in a mental state that tended toward dependency. “Do you know how to wait patiently?”
“A little bit, not much.”
“I suggest you work on it. Our healing methods also require patience, but after that, it’s worth it.”
“Fine.” Martin-Yosef nodded and stalked off without another word. He had to find Mike and update him about the fabricated details of their argument that he’d told Skulholt about. It was lunchtime, and Michoel said they’d sit at a table with Mike and eat together. It was interesting that Mike—without his yarmulke—was so strict about kashrus.
“I’m from a very traditional family,” Mike replied coldly when they sat down at the small, round table in the dining room, and Martin-Yosef mentioned it. “And it’s important to my parents.”
“Oh.” Martin looked around the room, leaned forward, and asked, “Do they have listening devices here, too?”
“Not to the best of my knowledge,” Mike replied confidently. “But there are cameras. You should sit straight and say what you want to say quietly, without all the secrecy. After lunch, we’ll go out to the gardens and find a quiet corner to talk.”
Michoel looked at both of them and passed a hand over his wrinkle-lined face. “You two have become friends?”
Martin snickered. “Sort of.”
“Eat up, children,” Michoel said to the two boys, and glanced behind him. The closest table was rather far away, but still he couldn’t relax. “And don’t forget that every potential recovered person can also be a potential tattler, so please be careful.”
“For sure.” Martin nodded. “Say, Mike, did someone ask you about our argument?”
“No.”
“The doctor met me and asked me what it was about.” He spoke calmly, leaning back in his seat and eyeing Michoel, who was trying to open a can of tuna with a can opener. “I told him we started arguing because of your hat, and then we began to argue about who Uncle Michoel loves more.” He smiled to himself and took a disposable plate from the middle of the table. “Just so you should know, in case someone asks you.”
It was a good thing he’d had time to say this, because a moment later, Skulholt came to their table and asked Mike to come out to the corridor with him.
As soon as Mike had left the room, Martin turned to Michoel. “Can he be trusted?” he asked, pointing with his fork to the door of the dining room.
“He’s a good boy,” Michoel answered slowly. “But as far as trusting him, I don’t know to what extent you can.”
“It seems he recorded your conversations on his phone.”
Perl’s forehead creased, but he didn’t say a word.
“I hope that what he’s telling the psychiatrist now is not what we spoke about, but what I told him that we spoke about.”
“I hope so too,” Michoel said testily. “It wasn’t very smart of you to trust him so much during your first encounter with him.”
“I didn’t do much; he came to me with all the information—which, by the way, he got from the fact that you trusted him and spoke so freely on his phone.”
“I didn’t know you could record conversations like that.”
“So now you—” He fell silent as Mike weaved his way among the tables back to theirs. He sat down quietly and picked up his fork. They both looked at him. He muttered something unintelligible, and the three of them continued eating quietly. After a few short minutes, they went out to the front lawn.
“If they ask, we’ll tell them we went out to speak privately because we asked Michoel to mediate between us,” Martin said with a laugh. “So, he asked you about our argument, too? What did you tell him?”
“What you made up with me,” Mike snapped. “What do you think?”
“What do I think? I think that I don’t really know you, or how much I can trust you. Someone who records private conversations…”
“When it’s my only way to get out of here? And, by the way, is coming here under a fake identity any more trustworthy?”
“True,” Martin conceded with a smile, theatrically raising his hands. “So, that’s what Skulholt wanted, to ask you about our argument?”
“Well, that too.”
“And what else?” Michoel interjected.
“They want us to go out to Charleston tomorrow, as usual.”
Michoel blinked and then said, “Oh, your demonstrations. They would take me along this time, too?”
“He told me to feel you out about doing it.”
“What do you do there?”
“We hold signs, sing songs, and walk in the street until we get to the town hall…nothing special.”
“I’d like to go,” Martin announced.
“They won’t let you. You’re not here long enough to know about their ideology, and you won’t be able to answer questions about it when people come over to you.”
“People actually come over to you?”
“Sure.” Mike laughed. “It doesn’t sound like an attraction to you? We try not to get the people angry, but rather to attract their attention.”
“Besides for that night of wild behavior, when some of you guys got into the headlines,” Martin remarked. “A couple people are still sitting in jail for that, right?”
“No, they were sent to a psychiatric hospital. Well, that was when Ernie took them one day himself, and there wasn’t advance coordination. That’s how it is when you send crazies to lead a group of crazies. Dr. Jerry was so annoyed about that whole incident… But you know, he wouldn’t get rid of Ernie because of it; the guy does serve a great purpose.”
“Ernie? Is he on the staff? I don’t remember seeing him here.”
“No, he’s one of the people who work to recruit new patients. For example, he scouts around in hospital wards, shock and trauma centers, and psychiatric wards, and persuades patients to try the treatment here.”
“Maybe that’s how he got me.”
“Apparently,” Mike replied.
“I wonder if I’d recognize him when I see him. I would want to know how much of my memory I still have from those days.”
“He’s not here much. If I see him, I’ll let you know.”
Michoel nodded. “Okay, thanks. As for tomorrow, I want to join.”
“Join? Tomorrow?” Martin glanced from one to the other and lowered his voice. He needed all of his willpower not to lean forward conspiratorially, as he asked, “But why don’t you two stay back here, and when the place empties out—we’ll call police to rescue us?”
Mike looked at him with an expression that Martin could not interpret. “You’re too impulsive.”
“Why?”
“Because you just got here, and you want to work right away without thinking for a minute. Call law enforcement?” Mike laughed. “Why do you think I haven’t reported anything to anyone all this time?”
“Why indeed? Because they are probably smart enough to handle such a visit.”
“Good, so you do understand. When the police come, they hide the suspicious patients, and that means anyone who has a private phone, and a few others who aren’t reliable. And then they investigate to figure out who called the cops. And when they find that person, it’s not good for him at all.”
“Maybe they won’t hide us,” Martin replied, looking up at the sky. Cerulean, clean, free. “There won’t be anyone here when the police arrive, and after we go over to them, Skulholt won’t be able to do anything to us anymore.”
“Why won’t they hide us?”
“Who would do it?”
“They don’t empty out the place totally. The one who opens the electric gate for the police from inside will stick us into some hole beforehand.”
“Maybe you, but why me?” Martin bristled. “You have a phone, fine. And Uncle Michoel came here without anyone asking him if he’s interested. But I supposedly want to get well!”
“But you’re too new,” Mike said calmly. “And even in the case that they will let you walk around freely, and you’ll be able to exchange a few words with someone who comes, they will tell him right away that you’re a diagnosed schizophrenic, and your words mean nothing. And the risk isn’t worth it, believe me.”
“What happened to those who tried in the past?”
“They aren’t here today.”
“They were murdered?” Uncle Michoel gasped with dread.
“No, but they are hospitalized in serious condition in the psychiatric ward, and I don’t think,” he snickered, “that being careful about mirrors and pictures, and eating disgusting herbs and grass, will help them anymore… That’s how badly they were drugged up and messed around with.”
As if he’d heard what they were saying, the psychiatrist approached just then. They nodded at him in greeting, and he responded with a nod and a broad smile of his own before turning to Martin. “These are your new medications, Josef,” he said, pressing a small, green paper bag into his hand. “Start taking them tomorrow morning. There is some printed information inside about their effects and how to take them properly. What are the three of you doing here? Not fighting, right?”
“I’m teaching them some manners,” Perl replied seriously.
“Good for you, good for you!” Dr. Jerry chuckled, patting the older man’s shoulder before walking off.
Michoel Perl waited for a few minutes as he rubbed his forehead. “He looks so decent and honest… But don’t take any of that stuff he gives you, of course. What’s in there?”
“If they haven’t decided to give him anything psychotic at this point, then it’s probably just ‘shepherd’s purse,’ or maybe some aloe vera.” Mike laughed.
“I have a different question, Mike.” Martin wasn’t particularly interested in the contents of the bag in his pocket. “How is it that they trust you enough to let you have a phone, if you are so anti this place?”
“It was a process,” Mike replied quietly. “In my introductory meetings, they made such a good impression on me, like they were really dedicated to the members of the group, so warm and caring…”
“Like lots of cult leaders.” Michoel nodded.
“I don’t know, but they persuaded me. The material I read about them gave me a strong desire to get to know them better. And when I arrived here and started to get into their methods seriously, I really did feel much stronger. But then afterward, slowly but surely, I picked up on all kinds of practices that just felt very…off to me. And wrong.”
“It’s good that you continued using your judgment,” Martin said. “There’s a point where people lose it, you know.”
“What’s an example of these ‘off’ practices that you saw?” Michoel Perl—who Martin had already started calling ‘Uncle Michoel’ in his mind—asked.
“There are people here who just get more and more drugged; I have no idea what they are getting. And some of the talk and theories sound crazier than the craziest things I’ve ever heard in my life.” He glanced at Martin-Yosef and lowered his gaze right away. “And the fact that they don’t let me see my sister… Okay, I understand that I can’t bring her here without my parents’ permission, but why not let me see her? At first they did make some kind of offer to that effect, but then they denied it all!”
It seemed like Mike had forgotten that he had two people listening attentively to him; he was fuming now, and his eyes were flashing. Martin, who was noticing the receding figure of the psychiatrist enter the building, just hoped that no one else was sitting and watching them now, and would come in another twenty minutes to see what they had been “arguing” about this time.
“How old is your sister?” he asked Mike.
“She’s six. And she’s also anorexic.” He closed his eyes for a moment, and Martin wondered if he had superior acting abilities or if this was genuine. “She sent me faxes telling me that her life is in danger. I wanted them to heal her.”
“I can understand them,” Michoel said carefully. “They don’t want to get in trouble for abducting a minor.”
“I just wanted to see her! To give her some material to read!”
“Reading material? For a six-year-old?” Something about the story did not add up for Martin. It sounded delusional, if not an outright lie.
“She’s a genius; her IQ is extremely high. She’s in a school for gifted children. I, on the other hand, was always the dumbbell of the family, at least compared to her.”
“Hey, don’t talk that way!” Michoel put a hand on his shoulder.
“But it really was like that. My parents, even before knowing how brilliant she was, were out of their minds with joy when she was born. Then, when she began talking at only five months old, they were over the moon. The strange thing is that always…she always had a great relationship with me. She…she’s actually the only person who admired me, who listened to me, who gave me a real place in the family. She couldn’t care less about my grades; to her, I was simply the big brother she looked up to…”
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