Doves
an excerpt

Nine Lives

The sidewalk is splattered with a cat’s body, still fresh days after the accident. The children who walk by look at the cartoon, paper-thin on the asphalt, smeared like chocolate on bread. They point at the skin, at the ears, at the eyes—it looks so real that it might even be on the cartoons channel, so real that it might have been alive once. The parents can’t bear having their children point at bloody animals, so they grab them by the elbow and speed-walk away to the shuk.
The rabbinic store in front of the cat-smeared pavement has nothing about the torah and nothing about the Jews, except a big menorah on top of the roof and a piece of paper sellotaped on the glass doors that says that the synagogue across the street will hold services on Monday morning without Rabbi Katz. The store sells only electrical items. The fluorescent light bulbs are fifty shekels each, not too cheap, but not really expensive either.
It’s Friday morning, and the store opened at six. The owner stands outside, waits for somebody to enter. But the only people who approach his store actually cringe back at the sight of the hideous dead cat. The man watches as ten people cross the street to get away from the body, leaving his electrics store bare of any customers. There is only one thing he could do.
He topples over outside to the pavement, bends down, and with his fingernails slowly scrapes off the flat remains of the poor animal. He holds the cartoon by the tail, swings it back and forth, finally tossing it into the green garbage can. There is still a shade of scarlet on the sidewalk, but it doesn’t stand out as much as the dead cat did.

“It’s a wonder how cats move from life to life so fast,” Neta told her grandson. They were walking down the street towards the shuk. “We humans have only one life, and we waste that one in fifty years. Cats, they have nine—but they die so young! Only five, ten years.”
The boy nodded. They crossed the street to the electrical shop.
“Good morning!” Neta said to Nachum.
“Ay! At last, Netali, you are he first customer of the day!” he grinned, his white apron stained with hoary liquid from the machinery. “What can I do for you?”
“We need a small light bulb, you know, one for the shelter. Fourteen watts, I think. I am not sure. What do you have in store, anyhow?”
“For you, Neta? Anything.”
The pair exited the shop with the bulb, and she continued. “You know what I think about cats, Alon. When Baby died, it wasn’t too terrible, but when Anika passed away last month…anyway, cats know everything. They are taciturn, but they are smarter than humans, of that I am sure. Oh, they are marvelous creatures. Follow me everywhere, they do. Beautiful, too. They’re kings and queens of their own land, smart and much less faithful than dogs, which is a good thing. They know everything, they do.”
Alon looked up to the sky and saw the clouds gather. He knew it will rain, but he didn’t really want it to rain today. He liked it when grandmother started going on and on about how she likes rain, but today he wanted some peace.
“Your mother simply hates cats. It’s sad sometimes. That’s why you never get to see Mark.”
“Why do we need the light bulb?” Alon asked when they stopped just before crossing the street into the shuk.
“The same reason we need the food—to help us endure the hours we are going to spend trapped in that little room. But it’s okay. You know how long this lamp lasts? A lifetime. Isn’t that funny, Alon? It might even last longer than I do. But you are going to be older. I promise you that. You will grow as old as a eucalyptus tree.”
They turned to the left and entered the flower shop. “Good morning,” the flower seller said as she tied flowers on a black table, her back to the door. She already had another customer in the front of the shop, an older woman smelling the roses.
“I need some help choosing a flower,” Neta said. “Not too sweet, not too sharp.”
Without even turning around, the flower seller raised her chin and laughed. “Ah, Neta! It’s so good that you came.” She twisted in place and walked towards Neta and Alon. She was middle-aged, with wrinkles slitting their way through her cheeks. She was Russian, and her dark crimson lipstick was spilled all over her front teeth. “What kind of flower do you want?”
“All of them! I’ll need all of them where I am going! All types, one from each—a rose, a daisy, a poppy, a lily—anything you’ve got for me will do!”
“What’s the occasion?”
“Oh, nothing in particular.”