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UNZIPPING

It began with a kiss. It almost always begins with a kiss. Ella and Tsiki were in bed, naked, with only their tongues touching—when she felt something prick her. “Did I hurt you?” Tsiki asked, and when she shook her head, he quickly added, “You’re bleeding.” And she was, from the mouth. “I’m sorry,” he said, and he started a frantic search in the kitchen, pulling ice-cube trays out of the freezer and banging them against the counter. “Here, take these,” he said, handing her some ice with a shivering hand, “put them against your lip. It’ll stop the bleeding.” Tsiki had always been good at those things. In the army he’d been a paramedic. He was a trained tour guide too. “I’m sorry,” he went on, turning paler, “I must have bitten you. You know, in the heat of passion.” “Never——ind.” She smiled at him, the ice cube sticking to her lower lip. “No——ing ha——ened.” Which was a lie, of course. Because some——ing had ha——ened. It isn’t every day that someone you’re living with makes you bleed, and then lies to you and says he bit you, when you distinctly felt something pricking you.

They didn’t kiss for a few days after that, because of her cut. Lips are a very sensitive part of the body. And later, when they could, they had to be very careful. She could tell he was hiding something. And sure enough, one night, taking advantage of the fact that he slept with his mouth open, she gently slipped her finger under his tongue—and found it. It was a zipper. A teensy zipper. But when she pulled at it, her whole Tsiki opened up like an oyster, and inside was Jurgen. Unlike Tsiki, Jurgen had a goatee, meticulously shaped sideburns, and an uncircumcised penis. Ella watched him in his sleep. Very, very quietly she folded up the Tsiki wrapping and hid it in the kitchen cabinet behind the trash can, where they kept the garbage bags.

Life with Jurgen wasn’t easy. The sex was fantastic, but he drank a lot, and when he did, he’d make a racket and get into all kinds of embarrassing situations. On top of that, he liked to make her feel guilty for being the reason he’d left Europe and come to live here. Whenever anything bad happened in this country, whether it was in real life or on TV, he’d say to her, “Look what your country is coming to.” His Hebrew was lousy, and that “your” of his always sounded very accusatory. Her parents didn’t like him. Her mother, who had actually been fond of Tsiki, called Jurgen the goy. Her father would always ask him about work, and Jurgen would snigger and say, “Work is like a mustache, Mr. Shviro. It went out of style a long time ago.” Which nobody ever found amusing, certainly not Ella’s father, who still happened to sport a mustache.

Finally, Jurgen left. He went back to Düsseldorf to make music and live on benefits. He’d never be able to make it as a singer in this country, he said, because they’d hold his accent against him. People here were prejudiced. They didn’t like Germans. Ella thought that even in Germany his weird music and kitschy lyrics wouldn’t really get him very far. He’d even written a song about her. It was called “Goddess” and the whole thing was about having sex on the breakwater and about how when she came, it was “like a wave breaking against a rock”—and that’s a quote.

Six months after Jurgen left she was looking for a garbage bag and found the Tsiki wrapping. Maybe it had been a mistake to open his zipper, she thought. Could be. With things like that it’s hard to say for sure. That same evening, while she was brushing her teeth, she thought back over that kiss, over the pain of being pricked. She rinsed her mouth with lots of water and looked in the mirror. She still had a scar, and when she studied it up close, she noticed a little zipper under her tongue. Ella fingered it hesitantly, and tried to imagine what she’d be like inside. It made her very hopeful, but also a little worried—mainly about freckled hands and a dry complexion. Maybe she’d have a tattoo, she thought, of a rose. She’d always wanted to have one, but never had the nerve. She’d thought it would hurt a lot.

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